It’s a new school year, and parents and students are filled with hope, purpose, and—let’s face it—a bit of healthy skepticism. Families and teachers know that school goals are like New Year’s resolutions: They tend to start out strong and fade fast.Students with learning challenges often cope with high levels of anxiety, and repeated failure can make those struggles worse. How can you help your child set and reach important milestones without inciting stress or trampling their self-esteem?

Find Your System

Whether their goals are academic, social, or athletic, it might be time for your student to flip the script. Instead of asking what they want to achieve, students should think about what they are willing to sacrifice in order to get there.James Clear, creator of The Habits Academy and author of Atomic Habits, observes that everyone wants a gold medal, but few want to train like an Olympian. “Goal setting,” he writes, “is not about choosing the rewards you want to enjoy, but also the costs you are willing to pay.”

Clear also emphasizes the importance of systems in the achievement of goals, and likens the process of working toward a desired outcome to that of rowing a boat. “If the rudder is your goal, then the oars are your process for achieving it. While the rudder determines the direction, it is the oars that determine your progress. … You’ll never get anywhere just by holding the rudder. You have to row.”

Prune Goals, Form New Habits, Track Progress

He advises eliminating multiple goals that compete for time, resources, and attention, and focusing on a central milestone. Create a plan with your child that includes specific behaviours and when, where, and how they will perform them. For example, if their goal is to get a B in math, they might plan to take a short practice test every night at their desk before watching Netflix, or make a point of reciting multiplication tables in the shower before they leave for school. An implementation strategy helps people take an idea and turn it into a process that results in real progress.

Clear suggests that measuring progress provides evidence that motivates further achievement, so find a way to track a student’s efforts that will demonstrate improvement. How many push-ups did they do? How many problems did they finish? “Measure to see if you are showing up,” he writes. “Measure to see if you’re actually spending time on the things that are important to you.”

Enlist Your Environment

Creating an environment aligned with goals is also critical. Clear observes that “many of the decisions we make in our … lives are shaped by the options that surround us.” For example, if a student keeps a water bottle with them throughout the day, they are more likely to take a healthy drink of water than go hunting for soft drinks. If they leave their cellphone beside their bed, they will be inclined to check than read 20 more pages of a novel. This “choice architecture” can help your student stick with their goals by providing a positive set of options.

Need more support? Contact us to learn how we help our clients establish their plans, define their objectives, find their own solutions, and follow those plans to completion.

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Is your child in bed texting into the early hours of the morning? Are they bringing their phone to the dinner table and checking messages during family meals? Are they gaming with friends, Instagramming their day, and watching YouTube videos on weekends to pass the time? Those activities may be impacting their creativity, memory, sleep, and health.

According to pediatrician Michael Rich, director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Boston’s Children’s Hospital, our brains are always generating neural connections and pruning away the ones we use less, and those changes are being made in response to the artificial stimulation of digital media.

Games and social media appear to activate reward systems in the brain, which makes them addictive and preferable to less stimulating activities. That can lead to obsessive behavior that overrides a student’s underdeveloped system of self-control. Students with ADHD and anxiety disorders are particularly vulnerable.

Rich notes that when students invest time in online interactions instead of using downtime to play, create, and daydream, the brain loses out. “Boredom is the space in which creativity and imagination happen,” he says.

The blue light emitted from phones and laptops can also interfere with sleep, as it suppresses the release of melatonin and can interrupt and impede the deep sleep we need to repair and regenerate our bodies, shore up our immune system, support learning, and store memories.

When to Get Help

Rich says that parents should be concerned when a student’s life or health is becoming impaired.

“The thing[s] that we see are sleep problems, either sleep deprivation and/or sleep disruption of various kinds. We are seeing academic failure. We are seeing social problems. We are seeing increases in anxiety and depression that have a relationship to but are not necessarily solely caused by problematic interactive use,” he says.

An important sign is when a child begins giving up the activities they used to love—such as sports, social events, or outdoor activities—because they prefer to stay at home in front of a screen.

Quick Tips for Better Screen Health

Research led by Rich is exploring the impact of digital technology on the physical, mental, and social well-being of youth. He urges a balanced approach to screen time, encourages parents to help their children identify and manage their priorities instead of policing their online activities, and suggests creating device-free family zones. He offers these tips:

Evoke Learning offers coaching and mentoring programs that can help students set goals, improve self-esteem and self-regulation, and manage time effectively. Contact us to learn more.

Sources

Bradley Ruder, D. (n.d.). Screen Time and the Brain. Retrieved July 25, 2019, from https://neuro.hms.harvard.edu/harvard-mahoney-neuroscience-institute/brain-newsletter/and-brain-series/screen-time-and-brain

Reddy, S. (2019, June 17). Does Your Kid Spend Too Much Time Online? Here’s When to Worry. Retrieved July 25, 2019, from https://www.wsj.com/articles/does-your-kid-spend-too-much-time-online-heres-when-to-worry-11560763804

Light-Emitting E-Readers Before Bedtime Can Adversely Impact Sleep. (2014, December 22). Retrieved July 25, 2019, from https://www.brighamandwomens.org/about-bwh/newsroom/press-releases-detail?id=1962

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